inform himself of doctrine and the history of sects; and when I

showed him the cuts in a volume of Chambers's Encyclopaedia--except

for one of an ape--reserved his whole enthusiasm for cardinals'

hats, censers, candlesticks, and cathedrals. Methought when he

looked upon the cardinal's hat a voice said low in his ear: 'Your

foot is on the ladder.'

Under the guidance of Taniera we were soon installed in what I

believe to have been the best-appointed private house in Fakarava.

It stood just beyond the church in an oblong patch of cultivation.

More than three hundred sacks of soil were imported from Tahiti for

the Residency garden; and this must shortly be renewed, for the

earth blows away, sinks in crevices of the coral, and is sought for

at last in vain. I know not how much earth had gone to the garden

of my villa; some at least, for an alley of prosperous bananas ran

to the gate, and over the rest of the enclosure, which was covered

with the usual clinker-like fragments of smashed coral, not only

coco-palms and mikis but also fig-trees flourished, all of a

delicious greenness. Of course there was no blade of grass. In

front a picket fence divided us from the white road, the palm-

fringed margin of the lagoon, and the lagoon itself, reflecting

clouds by day and stars by night. At the back, a bulwark of

uncemented coral enclosed us from the narrow belt of bush and the

nigh ocean beach where the seas thundered, the roar and wash of

them still humming in the chambers of the house.

This itself was of one story, verandahed front and back. It

contained three rooms, three sewing-machines, three sea-chests,

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